1. Field of the Invention
The current invention relates generally to digital image processing, and more particularly to finding regions of interest in natural and synthetic images.
2. Description of the Related Art
A tremendous amount of digital images and photos are being created with the ubiquitous digital cameras, camera cell phones and PDAs. An important challenge is figuring out ways to manage and visualize collections of images and photos. In the case of photos, small sets from events such as social gatherings and travels are especially prevalent. Another factor is viewing images on small displays and mobile devices, when it is helpful to provide ways to condense the images.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/815,389, entitled “EXTRACTING VIDEO REGIONS OF INTEREST” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/815,354, entitled “GENERATING A HIGHLY CONDENSED VISUAL SUMMARY”, a method was disclosed to summarize and condense a video using a Stained-Glass Visualization, which shows a video using a storyboard generated from regions of interest (ROI) in the key frames of the highly ranked video segments. The ROIs are laid out and the gaps are filled by extending the ROIs using a Voronoi technique. This produces irregular boundaries and the result looks like a stained glass. Along with the visualization method, an algorithm was provided for finding the ROIs in a video segment based on motion analysis.
The Stained-Glass visualization is applicable to photos and images, producing a collage from a given set of images. Photo collages can be used in many ways. For example, a wallet-sized collage of family members can be displayed on a PDA or cell phone. Larger collages of a party can be put on a Web page and shared with friends. Poster sized collages of scenic photos from a vacation can be printed and framed.
Our earlier algorithm for finding ROIs in videos, being based on motion analysis, does not work for still images. What is needed is a method for finding ROIs in images and photos such that collections of images and photos can be managed and visualized and presented on large and small displays.